Monday, April 13, 2009

A visit to the temple!

This is the 2nd post I'm writing about a visit to the temple, and unlike the first post, which is still languishing as a draft, I'm determined to publish this tonight. It's my way of proving to myself that I can get over this urge to can an idea of a post and never revisit it. To develop this post, I've come up with a rather technical looking system basically consisting of writing headings and later deleting them a rather simple system. So let's see how things go... :)

IntroductionGAH!!!

To those who may give a rat's you-know-what, I live in a suburb of Colombo about 20km away on the A4 Colombo - Rathnapura - Batti road (Yes, I've ironically never been to Batti in my life, although mom has, and she's seen (or rather, "heard") the legendary singing fish!) The village temple is a rather magical place, and is situated next to a sprawling paddy field. It has a replica of the Avukana Buddha which I believe must atleast be 40-foot tall. Why I call this humble temple rather magical is the location of the Bodhi-tree, which is right next to the paddy field. And when the wind blows across the vast swaths of countryside and animate the leaves of the great tree, one cannot fail to imagine a certain 35-year-old prince, sitting under an ancestor of this majestic tree, leaves shining in the light of a full moon, 2500 years ago... You have to see it for yourself to understand it. (sorry if I come across as a religious nut, it was never my intention... lol)

Now today, we visited the temple as it was customary during the "Nonagathe" or "PunyaKaalaya" (time for religious observances) and the first thing we attempted to do was lighting oil lamps. Now with a lightning cloud visible in the distance, and a downpour possible at any time, it's no wonder that the wind blowing across the paddy fields was rather "gusty", if that is the right word to use. So Ammi keeps on trying and trying to to light them (at the same time telling me off for filling up the lamps to the brim with oil) and then I observe something that seemed strange at that moment, but in hindsight makes perfect sense. [incident removed coz hindsight is a bitch ;) lol] And now I know where I got all of that from!!! Hah! *glum look!* *sings "I got it from my Dada"* haha :D

Another interesting observation I made was the amount of people there from all walks of life, people we have a lot in common with and a lot of difference with. But at the temple, whatever superficial "statuses" we have built up in the outside mean practically nothing. I'm not saying that any person can walk into a temple and be looked at as nothing more (or less) than a fellow devotee. What I mean is most of them can. And this is something that is common to all religious institution in all the communities. It may not be 100% inclusion, but the number cannot be anything below 85% atleast.

And talking about inclusion, I was afraid I would be kicked out of the temple for wearing a tee that might've been used for the last 15 years... (maybe it was!) and before anyone launches an argument about thrift and modesty at me, let me clarify: there's a not-so-fine-line between modesty and the shirt being shitty enough to show off half of your chest, and half the time I was pretty sure I was on the wrong side of that line... hehxD

And in conclusion, let me briefly praise my own monkey tail and evaluate how well my system wish you a happy and prosperous new year again, filled with lots and lots of blogging and drama! ;D K maybe not so much drama, we've got twitter for that no? Haha